The real issue with the Boys Scouts

Periodically, controversy will erupt concerning the Boys Scouts of America. The latest “outrage” over the Scouts allowing girls to join Cub Scouts, with the promise of adding a program for older girls in the near future, is just the latest salvo in the culture proxy war that has become modern scouting.

Liberals and social justice warriors feel that if they can effect change in the Boys Scouts organization, they can use that victory to effect change in the culture at large. Conservatives and Christians feel with every change that takes place, more ground is lost in the culture war.

And so it goes, both sides lighting up the phones on talk radio, writing letters to the editors of local papers, and blasting or praising the scouting organization itself. Lost in all of this hyper-political drama is what’s at issue itself.

In this case, it’s the idea that girls should be able to join the Boys Scouts and learn what boy scouts learn.

Now, on one hand, I get it. The world is changing, and it would be nice to have some thing to hold on to that will not change. A reminder of “the good ole days,” as it were. But as I have previously posted, the good ole days are going away, and are not returning.

That doesn’t mean the future is dim, but rather that our future good ole days are going to be different, and we’d be wise to position ourselves to enjoy the future good ole days.

When I look at what is at stake with the Boys Scouts admitting girls, I see an organization that teaches it’s members to do their best, to do their duty to God and country, and to always be honest and act with integrity. I fail to see the harm in teaching those things to girls.

When I look at what Boys Scouts do, learning to tie knots, fix things, build things, hunt, fish, camp, survival skills, archery, etc, I see no harm in teaching girls the same things. In fact, with masculinity declining in our culture, girls need to know these things so they can function in the presence of a man who cannot do these things.

Masculinity. There’s an issue. Matt Walsh, a commentator for The Blaze and a conservative blogger, tweeted in the aftermath of the decision to allow girls into Cub Scouts, questioning why boys couldn’t just have a place to be boys? Good question. However, the question insinuates that by allowing girls to go on the camping trip, we’re somehow taking away the boys’ place to be boys. I mean really, have Cub Scouts Camps become “safe spaces?”

Here’s the issue with masculinity in the Boys Scouts. Like it is in our culture, masculinity is fading in the organization. Here’s why.

Since the Cub Scouts began allowing women to be scoutmasters in 1976, with the Boys Scouts making the same move in 2014, more mothers are becoming scoutmasters. And they do a heck of a job. A great job. I know a few. The issue to me isn’t women teaching boys to be men, it’s why aren’t more men stepping up to teach these boys to be men?

This issue is neither limited to the scouts, nor is it caused by the scouts. I read an article recently where tool manufacturers and hardware stores were starting to market their products by teaching millennials how to use them. Basically, “this is a skill-saw, here’s what you’d use it for, and here’s how you’d use it.”

While it would be easy to poke fun at millennial men for not being able to use a table-saw, we have to wonder why he doesn’t know. For every 20-something that doesn’t know how to change a tire, I’ll show you a dad who never took the time to show his son how to change a tire.

For every 20-something that can’t figure out how to use a drill-driver, I’ll show you a dad who never built a deck or tree-house with his son.

The reason masculinity is declining in our culture is because dads don’t teach their sons how to be men. How to take responsibility and raise and support a family. How to fix the toilet. How to change a taillight.

That’s a cultural issue. And that’s where the culture war is being lost.

So, if the Boys Scouts want to admit girls, let ’em.

And if your daughter wants to join the Boys Scouts, let her. Maybe she’ll learn some skills so a future repairman won’t empty her wallet by charging for blinker fluid.

As for me, I’m going to re-evaluate my life, and go home and teach my boys how to build a privacy fence in the back yard.